Ree-ding

The Jacob's article was interesting in how new a faculty deep attention reading is. Since the advent of Gutenberg and the printing press we have been bombarded by books, to the point of information overload.  The great insight into St. Augustine's life presented us with a picture of a time when books were an absolutely precious commodity.  Having a collection book's then is the equivalent of being on the cutting edge of technology today.  Except now today we can collapse a whole library's worth of information on to the width, length, and height of a book. Since there is such a plethora of available knowledge we have to be careful and more peculiar about where we divert our attention and for how long.  Such a remarkable transition has taken place over the last 150 years that we still haven't really caught up to it.  This is a point Jacob's article does a good job of pointing out by framing it from a teachers perspective who loves to read and wonders why her students do not.

I personally only like to read things in which I know the context surrounding their creation. The date and what was happening in the authors life and in society at that time.  I think that one who loves to read, also loves history.  For example the epic saga that the adopted J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, crafting a rich history of a world that dates back generations.  It is a creation story in itself.  One must start from The Silmarillion, works published posthumously by his son Chris, in it's fantasticly detailed lineages from the very creation of the elves themselves to the well known introduction of Bilbo of the shire in the Hobbit.  Hundreds if not thousands of years imagined into existence. That is basically a history lesson in mythopoetic fantasy terms.

Among other great novels I have come to deeply appreciate are Zorba the greek,  and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.  Both of these novels were recommended to me by my brother, some one I respect and look up to.  I otherwise may not have explored these two books.  Having an influence like that has given me a deeper respect for reading books.

A main reason kid's do not like to deep read today could be because of the information consolidating yet, attention diverting devices combined with the internet.  In order for someone to cherish reading, I think they have to read what they like and build up a "history" of books.  Once some one has established their repertoire they can draw from it as they take in new information and compare ideas of people who lived before, during, or after the author.  Even to talk about books with other book worms there is always a reference to other books.  If an individual doesn't want to build up their library of read books then they won't enjoy long form, deep attention reading. I believe it is important for schools to supply the context of the book in an enjoyable, engaging way. 

Kress's article was attempting to tackle  the difficulty genre's bring when different modalities are used in the same piece and which is more effective. This article was a drag for me which is why I am not writing much about it.

Thanks for tuning in!

The rise of the Algorithm

As this world of algorithms and high speed wireless internet becomes ubiquitous, what are the implications for the future?  They are many, especially considering that the smart phone in your pocket is a million times more efficient in processing than computers were twenty five years ago.  Imagine in the next twenty five years the implantable microprocessor in blood cells or the brain.  Maybe imagine isn't the word but waiting.  This seems to me to be the inevitable march of human progress and evolution.

Computer algorithms are capable of mimicing the process of natural evolution's mutations, selections, and inheiritance.  Now nobody commented on my last two posts about genetic engineering, and I am EXTREMELY curious what people think about it.  Anywho, algorithms can also be used to track your "social capital", basically what networks you are connected to and how many people you reach through your networks is known by algorithmic websites such as http://klout.com/home and http://www.peerindex.com/.  Some hotels have even researched the guests "Klout" and give them VIP treatment in hopes for a return of that individual publicizing how well they were treated on their social networking sites.  Sort of like a Social capital currency if you will. 

When it comes to algorithms making decisions or at least guiding them, it is, as I see it, and unstoppable force that will continue to reduce competition to milliseconds and nanoseconds (if those even exist lol!) As far as I see it either jump on the bandwagon or throw your communications device out the window and go back to writing letters that take days to deliver.  The world is getting smaller because of the reduction of time it takes communications to travel.  I guess time really is money as Slavin points out so well with the mega algorithmic sky scrapers that have the millisecond advantages on trading and info due to their placement on the now "motherboard' like cities. 

Here is a video interview of Ray Kurzweil, a very intelligent man who has made some startlingly accurate predictions.

Please take the time to view this, Thanks for reading!

P.S. -don't mind the dutch : )

Re...re...re...REMIX!

Networking. Networking. Networking. 

The world is growing ever smaller as our technological innovations remix culture on a daily basis.  It makes me think of Led Zeppelin taking old american blues songs and revamping them with the new electrification and amplification of their instruments.  Taking the old and reworking them into the new and re-creating legendary music with a huge network of fans.  This theme is especially prevalent in Anil Dash's video.  The implications this has for us as writers is huge! I feel like remixing harry potter and twilight into one huge conglomeration of magic, fantasy, werewolf, vampire, fictional epicness that borrows from both stories...NOT! I really don't, J.K. Rowling already did that with Larry Potter and some how got away with it...

     What fascinated me was ODD Future.  They reminded me of how Wu Tang Clan got started, RZA got together with his crew and began producing music in his apartment, beats for the clan to rap on.  He had a plan that in 5 years that crew would be on top, and he was right.  They innovated the rap scene by beginning as a group and selling cds out of the back of their car, then before long Method Man, Ghostface killah, and the rest of them were coming out with solo albums and being successful.  Being a musician it's is great to draw from people who are being successful and to use that to be innovative.  Cure for the Common is not signed to a major record label which has it's up's and downs.  I certainly would not sign onto a label where we didn't have full creative rights to put out what we want.  We do have a CD with all original songs, so we didn't quite go the route of ODD.  You can actually buy it off i-tunes, download it for free from our website, listen to it at www.grooveshark.com, and listen as well on soundcloud.  My suggestion is to buy it! Heck you can even get it from me personally ; )

     I hope that the creativity of our band will influence others, as I have been influenced by all the music that comes my way.  Heck i'd be honored if someone remixed one of our songs!!


P.S.- what do people think about patenting genes?  (previous blog entry)

Who owns what and how do they get paid?

Johnson-Eiola's Understanding Composition as Articulation was an enlightening article on articulation and symbolic-analytic texts in the postmodern sense.  I find that I do this ALL the time.  It seems like such an efficient way to validate your arguments in a discourse community.  The methods hyper-text allows for a reconstruction from linear to an amalgamation of links and sources from other sites.  So many times I have done this through social media sites such as facebook.  Take a link and spin it, as if I had thought of this all along as my own original idea. OR even go so far as to take links out of context to reinforce my argument, although those texts in their original context may argue against my own polemic.   I do this to attract an audience and the audience that most often than not responds is the one that understands the presuppositions, context, and other texts I am referring to (James E. Porter). All the while the articles I post on my page are not my own creative intellectual property, although I may put my own creative spin or commentary/opinion as a headliner to the information (such as in the case Matthew Bender v West Publishing except I am not trying to sell it as my own).  I may argue that my arrangement is creative, but could I really copyright that and publish it without infringing on the copyrights of the documents i have arranged around? 

This type of intertextuality is the norm and is the basis for all knowledge.  Books are based on books, which are based on books, which are based on....books.  Maybe the exception is the bible which is an account of Divine will.  The bible itself is a collection of books but those books are based on the word of God...any who maybe i'm getting myself in too deep of a point I may not be able to back up, so i will digress. As students we are given these grand expectations to understand Emerson and more or less to write like he did.  I am sure he drew on the great classics as did all others in his discourse community of his time as we do today. Yet we truly are freshman and need to cite, refer, and allude to these other peoples ideas.  Maybe this is why I didn't enjoy the class room setting in highschool, we learned about all these people and these books that seemed so foreign to someone who is bombarded with television, internet, video games, and other mind diverting attention grabbing, and shortening, modalities.  We were being taught to think for ourselves by learning about all "other" peoples ideas, this didn't make sense to me initially.  It was only after going back to college after a break in freshman year that I was able to understand the importance of intertextuality and one's dependence in the scholarly academic setting to be able to be aware of, allude to, and reformulate the writings and ideas of others.


In order to be successful in the college academia, one must subject the self a seemingly endless barage of ideas and arguments from people you never knew.

It is truly interesting to examine how Intellectual Property (IP) works in terms of copyrights and capitalism.  What distinguishes creative writing these days as an original idea is as rare a sighting as a do-do bird now-a-days?  When Johnson-Eiola mention, "the collection of pre-existing content, even relatively fine-grained and factual content such as sporting events scores, is increasingly considered to be a creative act, at least in terms of legal and financial aspects.", I was intitally blown away.  Sporting event scores are a creative act???!!!! I guess the news paper has to make money some how but that to me seems ridiculous being able to copyright facts such as those.  While information is not free there is a certain extent of limitation that occurs if this is so.  Such as distribution and who gets access (those with money).  But at the same time info is valued and moving information as a commodity is an economic boon in an economy that sells fragments and portions of texts.  People must make a profit some how. 

What really grinds my gears, moving away from literary analysis, is the copyright or patents of Genes, such as what Monsanto does.  Splicing a virus and a and corn, by taking genes from a virus and implanting them in mutliple corn plants and taking the ones that survive and cloning them, therefore patenting corn that produces it's own pesticide in the field and even possibly inside your intestines.  I mean what kind of alchemy is this?  And to say you are allowed to copyright this hideous franken-corn is like saying you can pantent life because you altered it in a creative way.  Will slavery resurface if I am allowed to patent a process that clones people and therefore own the clones as intellectual property and bid them to do my will?  HAH! maybe that is a little too far out, but do you get my point?  Where is the line drawn in terms of copyrighting or patenting something like genetic modification?  With living entities, and possibly human genetic engineering in the future?  Will there be a company that patents a process or a portion of genomes to use in baby designing so that you can implant w/e genes, blue eyes, black hair, atheleticism, you want in the child you will birth?  This is technically what Monsanto does with corn, soy, sugar beets, and canola, giving them a stranglehold on the world food supply by filing lawsuits against people who, through no fault of their own, end up with some monsanto crops growing in their fields and therefore face endless litigation by Monsanto's arsenal of lawyers meant to bleed your funds.  The same goes for seed sellers.  Where is the humanity in this?  Does this peeve any one else off or am I on an island here?

Lanham and Kohl- Digitization of the humanities

Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, I hadn't finished the readings and did not want to write some B.S.

Most all of our readings have discussed the implications of the way the digital revolution changes the way we distribute, understand, and interpret information.  One big point made by these readings is the change in cultural authority and single authorship.  Books have been the unchangeable cultural authority since the renaissance.  This authority fades due to the transition to the screen, where type font is amendable, rewriteable, and reformatted in tangible ways that undermines the the relationship between author and authorship.  The line begins to blur as our blogs show.  One person authors a blog post while another authors a comment.  Then roles reverse as the author of the blog becomes audience of the blog commenter.  Some drastic changes are taking place here as the role of the author is altered.  I can experientially relate to the arts and letters explanation of how the "performance" of a piece of music resembles more so the writing of the tune then the actual professional concertizing.  Today more people have more music, so much so that they will never be able to listen to it all.  Just 10 years ago CD's were the major music distribution devices.  Not everybody had that much physical music, therefore the art of the concert and seeing it performed live were cherished more.  This could possibly be due to the rarity of music.  So now when someone thinks (at times, not all the time) of a musical performance, they think of it as through the medium of a cd, mp3 on the ipod, or youtube video, not as a actual live performance. 


One aspect of the article mentions the production and dissmination of fiction in participatory form.  Such as:  video games, theme parks, and museum simulations.  VIDEO GAMES!?!?!?! Finally someone recognizes the potential for a participatory fictional story as possible learning material in academic setting.  One video game I have recently played is Deus ex: Human Revolution.  The theme is set in 2027, where corporations are bigger than the government and augmentation technology is prevalent everywhere.  Basically the story plays out a type of transhumanist, darwinianesque control of our own evolution and the societal impacts of such technologies on class, morals, and ethics.    If plastic surgery is ok to reconstruct a perfectly normal face for cosmetic reasons, is it reasonable to tinker with human genes in the hopes of progessing science and humanity.  What are the ethics involved in such research?  All this packed in an interactive video game scenario where, in the final moments of the story you are in a unique position to either tell the truth, make up a lie, or propagate an ideology that affects the end scene. 

Another topic i found to be interesting was the literacy of digitalization.  How it affects youth in the critical stages of development and how it affects the structure and budget of the academic world.  This class is a wonderful example of the mixed media and interactivity we are reading about through out the weeks.  Like in Kohl's writing the history of text is really ever changing, such as in the wiki world.  One prime example is Julian Assange with his leaking of information wires between countries.  If he were to do this in book form I doubt it would have half the impact as it being instantaneously published online, with the ability to add to his body of leaks.  The same for wikipedia, the search for truth is constantly being added to by US! The internet is THEE book and the world is it's authors.  Cool analogy?

I know I spend more time disseminating and engrossing my self through the internet then through books.  Is this true for you?
 

Mishra and Wolf

These two readings were slightly difficult to trudge through.  On Mishra's article much of what we see in illustrations can be deceiving. One example is the color coded three dimensional figures used to represent a cell and it's organelles.  While these illustrations are useful in biology, the reality is a cell does not look so organized and color coded as people are taught through the illustrations.  People more often than not see an image in light of a passerby without much thought, which is quite different than the way we analyze texts, which is the meat of how information is interpreted in academic settings.  With t.v. and advertisements galore, people don't examine or think critically of how they are targeted as a consumer.  

The difference of the psychology of the arts and the sociology of sciences in Mishra's article was also interesting. I side with the psychology of arts interpretation, that individual cognition and how Arnheim "sees artistic activity as a form of reasoning, in which perceiving and thinking are indivisibly intertwined."  He goes on to state that laboratory demonstrations and diagrams found in text books are not scientific statements, but rather illustrations of scientific statements, whereas in are the image or illustration IS the statement. 

I tend to find my-self expression through my own experiences making the statements and my own response is the artistic creativity through reason and thought.  When it comes to the sociology of sciences it makes me think of just regurgitating everything we learn in a uniform and conformed way. 


One thing I thought was extraordinary was how many tests take place using simulations.  The fact that a pilot can receive a license without ever flying, or that cars were tested through a simulation, and even computers themselves are put through a simulation is fascinating on how this affects reality.  Will education become a simulation?  So many of our perceptional experiences are now being replaced by conceptual abstractions.  Are there inherent dangers involved in this switch?  Or is it just inevitable being in the midst of a digital revolution?  With a heavy reliance on computer simulations in institutions of industry, medicine, law, and science, the margin for error is slim, especially with human lives in the balance. 

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the larger role computer simulations in our lives?

(i hope they make computer simulations of video games...virtual reality that you actually have to run to run and use your physical body to move in the virtual world) 

Wysocki it to me baybay...(a pun on a movie line)

I really dug on Kant in the Wysocki article.  It was interesting how she labeled his philosophical tendencies as gendered, due to how he thought at the time, combined with how women were perceived as not being able to have universal judgments.  I frankly do not see his philosphy in this light.  Kant speaks of universals that are beautiful because they align with our nature and is formally inherent in the object.  I can't tell in the article if she is attacking Kant's philosophy of recognizing beauty or not.  I would have to say I disagree with Wysocki when she quotes the "irony" Mary Shelley points out  that Kant's freedom of aesthetics leaves no room for the family, love, or pleasure.  Families are the universal structure to life so how does it leave no room for the love or pleasure of the family.  One could walk down the street and see a family of six and see the beauty in the bonds they share.  I can understand her argument about the particularity that is lacking when an object is formally abstracted and generalized to some universal truth.  In these certain cases where she lists TV, magazines, ads, etc...I think she is missing the boat because what is portrayed in these advertisements of our day, in my opinion, is not a Kantian universal ideal of beauty. 

I can see where she is going with her argument towards the end, and in some cases I agree that a more particulate and temporal understanding of beauty takes place between two people can be more beneficial, rather than some distant abstract form that every person needs to be modeled around or is deemed faulty or imperfect. The abstract form is the perfect curvature and waistline combined with an unblemished face which is prioritized over the beauty found in the old person who has lived a life, or a not so perfect person who is trying their best to achieve their dreams.  I agree that our popular culture espouses the first mode of abstract perfectionism with it's models that must fit a certain category or a photo-shopped impeccable complexion.  I definitely think that Kant's universal truths found in nature are much more appreciative of true beauty and I feel like Wysocki confuses it with the current trends and fashions of our time, which tend to objectify women.


WHEW....! I hope i got some ideas across.  Now to Bernhart, whom I thought did a clear and concise job of telling me why the Wetlands paper was so eye catching, in a non-visual way of writing.  Very clever that he wrote of it so well in such a manner.  Interestingly at the end he noted how no english classes teach both ways of crafting documents and related how digital age media REQUIRES it!  With screens everywhere, especially portable ones, it is important to be able to get your point across in the amount of space you have with out having to scroll down.  That first eye catching glimpse of the screen will either captivate the viewer or the viewer will ignore the page and search for something else.  The diagram of Visual Organization of Written Texts is actually quite fascinating.  The importance of the visual Gestalts in both the visually and non-visually informativetexts  is almost like a Kantian universal!!! By that I mean most every professional visual and non-visual informative text are written or drafted with these understandings that if they form their texts these ways that they will captivate most any human audience.    Great articles!


Signing off now, CIAO!

P.s. Can anyone guess what movie my the quote in my title is a pun of?  Let me know if you need hints ; )

When reading Jones article I found myself relating his writings to my own experience, and alas what else would I blog about? The concept of "inter-activity" is how most all young people experience the multi-modal landscape of the web.  Having multiple browers up either all on the same line of thinking or totally different strains of thought.  How people are perceived and the actions they take are summed up in audience segregation, where as a person can tailor their post to their intended audience in order to be perceived in a communicative way.  I know that when I post a Ron Paul video on Facebook that a certain group of my friends will respond to that video and we can generate some form of conversation, whereas this video may alienate me from different groups of friends who would comment on a less political video.  This brings into light the Attention economy, the fact that the more attention your post or video can garner the more "credible" it is.  With Cognitive attention one can spread his attention span over through means of a computer, and the Social attention one must have in order to be able to communicate.  People will only respond to what they feel they can relate to, unfortunately it is the popular culture that people will respond to more often than not.  Most of the time when one's post contains intellectual qualities it will not garner the same amount of responses as the bit about popular culture.  It may receive as many posts, but from whom I would receive comments from would be a more narrow audience than if posting something about popular culture. 


Since I have begun to touch on Williams I have begun to notice how I view pages and summarizing who those people are based on what they post on their page.  The relationships I have online are superflous at times and also can be quite shallow.  The amount of people who see what I post online is quite strange in the fact that I haven't seen these people in years yet I can know, to some extent, what is going on in that person's life.  All the while they would have no idea that I had even visited their page.  It is akin to being a detective, a super-sleuth with access to the interpersonal relationships in peoples lives by simple clicks of the mouse.  Sometimes it is awkward to post on someones page you haven't spoken to for years, or for that matter to introduce yourself through facebook to a person. Are these going to be fruitful relationships?  Do the facebook friends take away from our relationship with our "physical" friends? I have experienced a strengthening of certain relationships and a strain or distance from others.  What I truly love about the social media aspect is the little intricacies it takes to get a point across with your own personality.  The fact that you are putting yourself out there within a context that is fully accessible to anyone with an opinion who can voice it on your page whether you like it or not.  This is a great!  Anyone can challenge anyone, or multiple, idea(s) at a time. 

How does facebook or other social media sites bolster your relationships with your friends? How does it help form your identity?


Someone please comment!

Baron, Stroupe, and Trimbur

Out of these three articles my favorite was Baron, mostly because I could understand his ideas better than the other authors.  What I truly found extraordinary was the Thoreau Pencil Company that Henry David Thoreau had started and maintained, in order to fund his trips to Walden pond.  That followed up by the invention the telegram, which Thoreau showed disdain for, as well as Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone.  Both of these rather new inventions did not compare to the pencil's availability at first, but the telephone will overshadow both of these innovative forms of communication.  It is interesting to observe the patterns of technological communication breakthroughs and one point I noticed is how the new technology is very expensive and tailored to one specific task.  Like the pencil for instance was only used by carpenters until it became remodeled and improved to be applicable for many other jobs, such as those of an artist, scribe, or explorer.  The same goes for the personal computer and the telephone.  Our computers today are our phones, pencils, and telegrams.  They have revolutionized how we communicate, but where do we go from here?  Will computers become hologram screens that are in super HD?  Or will everything become smaller and smaller and we end up with an Augmented reality where our screens are engraven on our contact lenses?  These Nano technologies have come up in alot of movies lately, in one of them I watched recently, G.I. Joe, they were weaponized and became a terrorist weapon.  Is hollywood conditioning us to accept the creation of these technologies in the future? 


What are all your thoughts on what, when, and how the next technological communication breakthough will occur?

Comics

 I very much enjoyed these readings, although they will be hard to discuss I think.  The idea of things being a either in the conceptual  realm or sense realm has split the world into a dichotomy. These abstract Icons I am using to formulate linear ideas that may help you visualize or imagine what I am thinking.  They are a sort of portal into my mind. I am externalizing my thoughts through an extension of my self, the laptop and internet connection, and you, by reading them, give life and personality to the words. 

With the dawn of social media sites, identities, or our conception of our identities, are layed out for all to see. When one pushes the post icon, a transformation from the realm of concept to the realm of sense occurs.  Our concepts and ideas take form in words and combined with pictures strive to identify ourselves so that others may be visually aware of what we think our concept of self is.  This is a type of non-visual awareness in which many people who post about themselves invest more time and energy maintaining this non-visual awareness rather than seeking out casual conversations with present, real human persons.  This shift is occuring and we are all in the thick of it.  The ideas of words, pictures, icons(like button), and time is quite interesting in the facebooks and myspaces.  Even the icon of the rectangular box is everywhere!!! Hope my ideas made any sense.

Facebook Is a daily Comic book of peoples lives!

Gosh my brain hurts....




We'll I hope ya'll can make some understanding of this or even comment your conceptions...I have to ask what is your favorite icon(s)? 


P.s. to answer my own question, My favorite icon(s) are those of Led Zeppelin